Is Elite College Worth It? Maybe Not

[TTQ64]

8+ years? How did you swing that one? Must have been living on cheap wine and cheese

In all these discussions I always wondered if a Liberal Education is supposedly an entity there must be an antithesis, so what exactly is a Conservative Education?

School of bitchassness .........majoring in right wing hate talk radio and toothlessness.

[TTQ64]

Agreed. Growing up in New Orleans I knew a fair number of "rich" kids that went to elite Northeast private colleges.
One went to Haverford, majored in history, then went to University of New Orleans, a commuter public college to get his med school requirements.
Now a career Navy doctor. Now what exactly did Haverford do for him?

Another went to Hampton-Sydney, got a degree in economics. His first job was a bank teller in New Orleans. Now is a city employee. What did Hampton-Sydney do for him?


Another went to Cornell, got a degree in hotel management or something like that. His father owned a hotel in New Orleans but went bankrupt.
He now sells real estate, but in a city which is overwhelmingly black, nobody cares where he went to college.


The only real difference in where one went to school I saw in New Orleans is what law school one went to. And that would be LSU, Tulane or Loyola.

Since about every other white male adult in New Orleans is a lawyer I guess that makes a difference.

What does make a difference is what h.s. one went to. No doubt a kid gets a higher quality of education in a private prep school. It's basically child neglect to send your kid to a public school there.

what a racist fuck!

It's comments like this that prove racist white men never wanted Blacks to be educated. He thinks Blacks don't want to be educated.

[cawacko]

But that's not what you wanted to talk about, though.

You wanted to talk about degree programs, a topic not mentioned in your Op-Ed.

So when we did discuss it, you got whiny, screechy, and bitchy, claiming that I misrepresented you by quoting you directly.

Still won't quit huh? You did misrepresent what I said. Either because you didn't read the article or you are a flat our liar. Either way you keep coming back for attention.

[cawacko]

With all due respect, that appears to be contradictory statements.

I could want her to get into the best school based on the U.S. News & World Report ratings. But the highest ranked school she gets into may not be the best for the major she wants to study. Make sense?

(It's sort of the premise that LV is losing his sh*t over)

[anonymoose]

I could want her to get into the best school based on the U.S. News & World Report ratings. But the highest ranked school she gets into may not be the best for the major she wants to study. Make sense?

(It's sort of the premise that LV is losing his sh*t over)

??? I don't pay much attention to LV's posts.

[cawacko]

??? I don't pay much attention to LV's posts.

other than him losing his sh*t, you're not missing anything

[Nordberg]

Op-ed from some dude at the WaPo who went to Harvard arguing the need for over concerned parents to relax about where their kids go to school. As a new parent I'm all gung ho that my daughter only go to the best schools. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right fit for her.

For those of you who have raised your kids how "stressed" did you get over them getting into the best schools?




Dear Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman: You wasted your money

Dear Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman and other rich parents who got their children into selective colleges with bribes:


Let me explain something to you. I went to Harvard, which accepts only 5 percent of applicants. I confess that when I opened the acceptance letter, I thought great wealth and power would soon be mine. So why have I spent my life being ordered around by people who attended less-selective schools?

I'm not complaining. I love my work. But I have always wondered why smart people like you assume getting into an Ivy League school, or its equivalent, guarantees success.

What about the giants of film and business who didn't go to selective universities? I will cite the acceptance rate reported by U.S. News & World Report for each college I mention.

Steven Spielberg attended California State University at Long Beach (29 percent of applicants accepted).

Warren Buffett graduated from the University of Nebraska (64 percent). In addition to Buffett, the other CEOs of the top five companies on the 2018 Fortune 500 list went to these schools: University of Arkansas (66 percent), Texas A&M University (70 percent), Auburn University (84 percent) and Illinois State University (89 percent). The evening news anchors at ABC, CBS and NBC attended Ithaca College (71 percent), Syracuse University (47 percent) and California State University at Sacramento (68 percent).

Permit me to get personal. Here are the colleges of The Washington Post managing editors, deputy managing editors and local editor, who have the power to fire me: University of Maryland at College Park (44 percent), Northwestern University (9 percent), Brown University (9 percent), Kalamazoo College (73 percent), University of Colorado at Boulder (80 percent) and Pomona College in California (8 percent).

There are a few grads from ultra-selective schools in that group, but they all answer to executive editor Martin Baron. He was played by Liev Schreiber (Hampshire College in Massachusetts, 64 percent) in the Oscar-winning best picture "Spotlight," about his leadership of the Boston Globe. Baron graduated from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania (25 percent).

Don't forget Frederick J. Ryan Jr., The Post's publisher and chief executive (University of Southern California, 16 percent). Many of you paid big money to get your kids illegally into his alma mater, but it is not as selective as other schools in the scandal, such as Stanford University (5 percent) and Yale University (7 percent).

I realize The Post's owner, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, went to Princeton University (6 percent). But the Ivy League had little to teach him about how to become the world's richest person. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, almost as wealthy, realized that early and dropped out of Harvard after two years.

Do your homework. Ultra-selective-college diplomas don't correlate with better pay. Researchers Stacy Berg Dale and Alan B. Krueger looked at 30 schools, the most selective being Yale and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. They found that students who were admitted to the most-selective schools but who decided to attend less-selective colleges did not sacrifice anything in future pay: They wound up 20 years later earning as much as peers who went to selective schools. The scholars concluded that monetary success was the result of character traits such as persistence and warmth acquired long before we go to college.

The exception, they said: low-income students, who on average were better paid if they attended a more-selective school. The data also indicate women made more if they went to more-selective schools because they were less likely to marry and put their careers on hold for child-rearing.

There are ways for desperate parents like you to get your kids into selective colleges without risking indictment. They could enroll at less-selective colleges, do well and transfer to an Ivy after a year or two. That path was taken by the two most recent U.S. presidents, and me.

The presidents of the past two decades have all been Ivy League alums. But those brand-name diplomas do not guarantee success in office. Ronald Reagan was preceded by U.S. Naval Academy (8 percent) graduate Jimmy Carter and succeeded by Yale graduate George H.W. Bush. Reagan attended Eureka College in Illinois (62 percent), yet historians rank him ninth among all presidents, while Bush is 20th and Carter 26th.

Change is possible. The Post's 2020 Power Rankings for Democrats seeking their party's presidential nomination show Joe Biden (University of Delaware, 60 percent) and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Howard University, 41 percent) ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

Think about the powerful people you know. I'll bet most of them did not attend colleges that are nearly impossible to get into. If you had encouraged kindness, humor and hard work in your children, they would have done fine. And you would have had to spend much less money on lawyers.

Sincerely, Jay Mathews.


https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/artic...u-13708375.php

What a hodge podge of incidents. Fact is more prestigious schools open up doors. They give you are edge and an opportunity.

[Micawber]

Did it help Tump?

[Micawber]

You need college to get in the door. It is a requirement for most jobs. If they hire you, they will teach you how to do the job. School really does not do that. You have shown you have the ability to learn and enough follow up to complete college.

I disagree. I think you can get a decent job if you possess good user skills in all the major software and can pick up and use
any large business's proprietary software.. If you are ambitious organized and work hard plus what I just said, college is a waste of fucking time.
You can do somewhat interesting work get paid 80 grand and have the dream. You will make much more with college if you get a degree
that gets you some ticket, i professional license. But the college experience is a paid mofucking vacation. Educationally enriched vacation?
Surely. Nontheless, 30,000 horny 20 year olds in a city it 50% sandals 50% work, maybe 60/40 depending on the breaks and how hot you are!

[leaningright]

I was in college for 8+ years, and I never really saw these horrific liberal indoctrination experiments going on in class rooms.

Maybe I was just in the wrong classes!

I’m going to guess that’s probably because you already had liberal tendencies. I was in college in one of the most conservative states in the union and outside of my math and science professors and one great history professor, my cast list of instructors was chock full of liberals...spouting their liberalism as fact, talking badly about our state, many of them demeaning any person of faith or influence of faith, which I found to be very offensive. Looking back that’s probably why I hated college. ... Oh yea, coaches. My coaches were conservatives.

So for 30+ years I have prepared my students to have their views and beliefs challenged as they prepare to “further” their education using my college experiences as examples.

[cawacko]

I’m going to guess that’s probably because you already had liberal tendencies. I was in college in one of the most conservative states in the union and outside of my math and science professors and one great history professor, my cast list of instructors was chock full of liberals...spouting their liberalism as fact, talking badly about our state, many of them demeaning any person of faith or influence of faith, which I found to be very offensive. Looking back that’s probably why I hated college. ... Oh yea, coaches. My coaches were conservatives.

So for 30+ years I have prepared my students to have their views and beliefs challenged as they prepare to “further” their education using my college experiences as examples.

I really like your response LR. The thing is all students should be prepared to have their views challenged in college. That's what college is supposed to be there for, you to be challenged and forced to think. But I get exactly the point you were making that if you hold certain viewpoints it could very well be held against you.

And your first paragraph is spot on as well in that if your professors are saying things you agree with you are lot less likely to take issue with it.

[Cypress]

I’m going to guess that’s probably because you already had liberal tendencies. I was in college in one of the most conservative states in the union and outside of my math and science professors and one great history professor, my cast list of instructors was chock full of liberals...spouting their liberalism as fact, talking badly about our state, many of them demeaning any person of faith or influence of faith, which I found to be very offensive. Looking back that’s probably why I hated college. ... Oh yea, coaches. My coaches were conservatives.

So for 30+ years I have prepared my students to have their views and beliefs challenged as they prepare to “further” their education using my college experiences as examples.

You guessed wrong. As an undergraduate, I was a registered Republican, and I cast votes for Ronald Reagan and for George H.W. Bush, as well as for republicans candidates up and down the ticket.

I never asked college professors about their politics, they never asked about mine.

[leaningright]

You guessed wrong. As an undergraduate, I was a registered Republican, and I cast votes for Ronald Reagan and for George H.W. Bush, as well as for republicans candidates up and down the ticket.

I never asked college professors about their politics, they never asked about mine.

Well ... it was a guess.

And I never asked anyone about their politics either...but it was obvious which side of the political spectrum they favored. Kind of like watching the “news.”

[Cypress]

Well ... it was a guess.

And I never asked anyone about their politics either...but it was obvious which side of the political spectrum they favored. Kind of like watching the “news.”

There is no question a lot of college professors are politically liberal. Perhaps even a majority.

But human beings are entitled to an opinion. Most of the people I worked with in the petroleum industry were Republicans and conservatives - and they wore their politics publically on their sleeves more than I ever saw college professors do.

College professors are not going to give equal time to evolution denial or climate denial, as they will to teaching the current consensus state of the science. I am sure some would consider that a "liberal" bias, but I don't. Just like none of us expect vaccination-denial to be taught in our medical schools.

I can remember fellow students who were devout Mormons, devout Catholics, Baptists, and Methodists. And I literally do not recall a single time they were mocked, or made to feel uncomfortable in public for their faith. No question that behind closed doors there was some laughter at the expense of "creation science" - but it was never done in the classroom, that I saw.

[anonymoose]

other than him losing his sh*t, you're not missing anything

He stalked me for a while. I guess you're his target since I quit paying attention to him. I'll bet a screen shot of your "Who Quoted Me" section shows line after line of LV. His arguments tend to be circular if I remember correctly.